Category Archives: Ecuador

Joni and Eric

Joni and Eric left Ecuador this morning. They were wonderful guests and great travel companions. Here they are at Machu Picchu. Eric and I wanted to hike up that big hill/mountain you see in the background, but we put it off for day 2. Then, after discovering that what it would cost for us to return on the second day, we skipped it.

Instead, we wandered around the town of Aguas Calientes. Eric wanted to try chicha, the famous alcoholic beverage of the incas. It’s basically fermented corn; the indigenous peoples of the sierra and the jungle make it, I believe. Here’s how: people chew corn and spit it into a big cauldron. They add some other things to it and let it sit for a while. The saliva apparently helps it ferment. All over the place, there are big bamboo poles with red bag (it can be a plastic or a cloth bag) at the end of it. This pole/bag combo is displayed wherever chicha is available. It’s placed like a flag on the front of someone’s house, with the pole usually sticking out at a 45-degree angle.

Anyhow, in Aguas Calientes, there was one place that was displaying the chicha pole. It was in front of a dark doorway, next to a t-shirt shop. I asked the woman at the shop if they had chicha, and she pointed into the depths of the dark hallway to the side of her store and said it was in there. Eric and I walked in hesitantly. At the end of the dark hallway, there was a ramp with some traction boards nailed onto it. We ascended and came into what looked like a really impoverished home. There were three women in the kitchen, which contained a half-tiled tub with a steel water pipe and a very industrial-looking spigot at the end of it, a bunch of metal shelving, a stove, a few stools, a big pile of dirt or powder cement, and a huge steel cauldron. The kitchen overlooked a cinder-block building that was under construction. There was another ramp leading up to another room, if it can be called a room, which housed two tables and some benches. On one of the benches, there were a man and a younger woman sitting.

We asked if they had chicha. One of the women said yes, do you want one or two glasses. I translated for Eric, who suggested we get some to go. I inquired about that possibility, and they said sure and proceeded to rinse a big 2.5 liter bottle. I was carrying a smaller water bottle, which I quickly finished off and offered as an alternative receptacle. They filled it, charged us 1 sol (about 30 cents) and we left.

“Do you think they made that by chewing it and spitting it?” Eric asked.

“Um,” I thought about it. “Yeah. Probably.”

Yesterday at about 1:00 pm, we get back to Quito. Our travel agency guide in Cuzco picked us up on time from our hostal to take us to the airport. It was the first time he had been on time. When we arrived last Tuesday, we waited outside the airport for 15 or 20 minutes before he came. On the morning of our train ride to Machu Picchu, he was 15 minutes late. But yesterday, he was on time and very helpful. He even took our boarding passes to the tax window to pay the outgoing taxes for us. He said it would be $5 per person. Only after we were waiting at the gate did we notice the sticker on our boarding passes that said $4.28. He had pocketed almost three dollars from us.

Such a thing was pretty normal in Peru. In Cuzco, for instance, we went to a church and the guide told us it would cost three soles when the tour started. We waited around for the beginning of the tour for about 15 minutes and then went in the church. After we were well inside, he said the price was 3 soles for students in Cuzco. It was five soles for foreigners, and it was another 5 soles for the guide. So rather than being 3 soles, it was actually 10.

Later, at a museum, I asked how much a tour was. Ten soles, she said. Do you have an English-speaking guide, I asked? No, but we have a great Spanish-speaking one. Eric was gung-ho, so he said he´d pay our entrance fee if we´d translate. We had just translated the church tour, so we were ready for it; Eric bought the tickets. THEN, we found out the guide wasn´t free.

When we got into Quito, we were happy to be back in Ecuador, where you might get robbed but where you aren´t regularly swindled. Don´t get me wrong. Machu Picchu was beautiful; Cuzco was a charming little town; Aguas Calientes was nice too. But it was all touristy, full of (whiney) gringos, and thus full of Peruvian people who saw you only as a source of money. Ecuador felt comfortable.

Then, yesterday afternoon, we watched Ecuador´s soccer team beat Argentina 2-0. It wasn´t just a lucky win. Ecuador clearly dominated. With one minute left in the game, they scored their second goal. We were watching it in a restaurant full of lively Ecuadorians, who slapped high fives with us. It was the height of my Ecuadorian pride.

After the game, we went to see the new Star Wars. Overall, it was a great day. Unfortunately, Joni and Eric head out tomorrow morning early. Just now, we tried to go to a restaurant where they served cuy (guinea pig) for Eric to try, but they were closing at five and thus wouldn´t serve it cuz it takes too long. It´s been that kind of a day today. Kinda crappy. It´s raining slightly, we can´t really decide what we want to do, our plans falter or fail, and tomorrow, everyone goes back to work and/or real life.

More Peru stories to come.

On Monday, we left Ecuador for Peru. Our flight was at 5:15 pm, so we had all day to prepare and worry about last minute things. We spent a lot of time text messaging our friend Bill to try to arrange for him to get us tickets to the Ecuador/Argentina game this coming Saturday.

We arrived in Lima at 7:30 or 8, I don’t remember. We then had to stay in the airport until the next morning, when our flight for Cusco left at 6:00 am. It was rough. Just as I was getting the hang of falling asleep on a cold, hard floor, I had to wake up.

Our first impressions of Peru were formed on Day 0. The airport itself was much nicer than the five Ecuadorian airports we’ve been in. The people were just as nice, and if anything, their Spanish was clearer. When we disembarked in Lima, we were herded straight to a guy who offered to find us a hotel for the night. But since it would have cost $50 per person, we decided to pass.

We did, however, talk to him about Machu Picchu and Cusco. He warned us that high season is just starting and that we might want to book things right now. So we did.

He was with a travel agency called InkaWasi, and he gave us a quote for a whole package. It would include the following: a tour of the sacred valley of the Incas on day one, a hostal in Cusco for two nights, the train ticket to Aguas Calientes (the town closest to Machu Picchu), a hostal in Aguas Calientes, a guide and park entry fee for Machu Picchu, the train back to Cusco, a final hostal in Cusco, and a ride back to the airport.

We decided it might be a good idea to have some security for our plans, so we bought it, blowing most of the cash we brought with us.

More to come. . .

Contact unpredictable for next few days. We leave this afternoon and get back on Saturday the 4th. Will try to give some updates. Expect pictures next Sunday or Monday.

the courtyard at the orphanage

For the past six weeks or so, I’ve been teaching a basic English class at an orphanage called San Vicente de Paul. The picture above is of the courtyard at the orphanage, as the helpful caption tells you. The class is an hour and a half. We’re trying to implement a sustainable English program at the orphanage; in its initial stages, it is for adults, not the actual orphans.

My friend Bill and I have been teaching the classes. Yesterday, I was supposed to teach, but on Friday night, I got a text message saying that there were no classes due to the holiday. I’m ashamed to say, I was thrilled. We had just watched “Sideways” finally, and it kept us up late. I checked the phone at midnight as I was heading to bed, dreading having to wake up in seven hours, and then plan for and teach a class. Then I read the message: “no hay clases mañana por el feriado.”

Woo hoo.